The sun was descending the ladder of the hills; low now it stood above them, the valley in shadow more than half its breadth, a tender flood of gold upon the slope where the new orchard waved its eager shoots; the blessing of a day was passing in the promise of a day to come.
Out of the kitchen came the cheerful sound of batter for the corn bread being beaten in the bowl, and with it Sarah Newbolt’s voice in song:
Near the cross, O Lamb of God––
The beating of the batter dimmed the next line. Then it rose to the close––
Let me walk from day to day,
With its shadow o’er me.
The clamp of the oven door was heard, and silence followed.
Sarah was standing on the porch again wiping her hands on her apron, looking away toward the fields. The sun was dipping now into the forest cresting the hills; the white rooster was pacing the outside of the wire enclosure from which he had escaped, in frantic search of an opening to admit him to his perch, his proud head all rumpled in his baffled eagerness, his dangling wattles fiery red.
The smoke had found the low places in garden and lawn, where it hovered; a dove wailed from the old orchard, where a pair of them nested year after year; a little child-wind came with soft fingers, and laid them on the waiting woman’s hair.
Her face quickened with a smile. Joe was coming home from the field. Over his shoulder he carried his hoe, and as he came on toward her in yard-long strides his mother thought of the young soldiers she had seen march away to the war, carrying their guns in that same free confidence of careless strength. His hat was pushed back from his forehead, the collar of his blue flannel shirt was open. His boyish suspenders had been put away in favor of a belt, which was tight-drawn about his slim waist.
Very trim and strong, and confident he looked, with the glow of youth in his cheeks, and the spark of happiness in his gray eyes. He was well set in the form of a man now, the months since his imprisonment having brought him much to fasten upon and hold.